A working-level meeting for International Patent Classification (IPC) was held in Daejeon (News Letter No. 204)

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KH

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2010-11-16

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1. A working-level meeting for International Patent Classification (IPC) was held in Daejeon

A working-level meeting for IPC was held in the Republic of Korea. The attendees of the meeting were experts from the Patent Offices of the world’s 5 advanced countries (called “IP5”).

The Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO, Commissioner: Soo-won LEE) announced that the ‘IP5’s working-level meeting for IPC’ was held at the International Intellectual Property Training Institute in Daejeon. About 20 experts from the Patent Offices of the Republic of Korea, US, Japan, China and Europe attended this meeting and discussed detailed matters to prepare an IPC revised plan for the smooth patent examination cooperation among the IP5.

Traditionally, the Patent Offices of only 3 advanced countries (US, Japan and Europe) would lead the revision of IPC. However, from last year, the Patent Offices from the IP5 including the Republic of Korea and China performed in the revision of IPC.

As a chairman country holding this meeting, the Republic of Korea had a leading role in selecting a topic for the meeting, making a draft revision of IPC, and considering the opinions from each country. In this meeting, KIPO lead the way in the draft revision of IPC for the latest patent technologies in the green growth related field and the high-tech IT field in which Korea is a powerful technological player.

2. The Korean Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) has developed a ‘ultra-low price non-volatile memory device

Korea and US have jointly developed the original technology for a non-volatile memory device, a material cost of which is only one tenth in comparison with that of a conventional non-volatile memory device.

A printed electronic device research team under ETRI, KAIST(Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology), Hanyang University and the University of Texas in US have jointly developed the technology of fabricating a non-volatile memory device which is flexible and has a large surface area, by using inexpensive graphite.

On November 4, 2010, the result of this research supported by the Ministry of Knowledge Economy and the Korea Research Council for Industrial Science & Technology was published as on-line breaking news in ‘Nano Letters’ which is a world academic journal in the nano scientific technique field.

The memory device led by ETRI is fabricated by chemically processing graphite commonly used for pencil lead, to obtain a graphene oxide being in a single layer or a plurality of layers, and then by vapor depositing a thin film in a large area through a spin coating process. When graphite is used, the material cost is only one tenth, compared with silicon.

According to an explanation from the research team, as a result of a durability test, the characteristics of the memory device are maintained after the memory device is bent more than 1000 times.

3. A dispute regarding the intellectual property rights of StarCraft has been finally brought to court

The conflict regarding the intellectual property rights of StarCraft, among Blizzard, the association and the game broadcasting companies, has been finally resulted in a legal suit.

BlizzCon, a game convention held by Blizzard, closed in Anaheim, Calif., US on October 24, 2010. The relevant industry reported that at the closing day, Blizzard’s COO (chief operating officer) Paul Sams commented on legal action against Korean broadcasting companies. According to Mr. Sams’ comments, Blizzard considers that it is very important to protect the game that it has created and the intellectual property right. Although Blizzard had tried to settle the issues with the Korean e-sports association and broadcasting companies, it has now finally decided to take legal action.

Blizzard did not think about initiating legal action but it has chose the last card because the Korean association and broadcasting companies continuously changed the negotiation conditions and terms, without approving the intellectual property rights. So, Blizzard will file a lawsuit against the MBC game and likewise, it will take legal measures against the on-game net and the association executive office.

Mr. Sams flatly refused the indication that Blizzard belatedly claimed the intellectual property rights because of monetary profits. According to Mr. Sams’ explanation, Blizzard does not recognize e-sports as a profitable business and the royalties for the intellectual properties as proposed to the broadcasting companies are lower than the amount paid to the association in the past.”

The broadcasting companies are ready for the lawsuits. According to a spokesperson of MBC game, “Blizzard regards us as a relation of A and B not as a negotiation partner”… “we clearly acknowledge the intellectual property rights but in our position, it is difficult to accept the conditions from Blizzard.”

4. KIPO hands down the “KIPOnet” to Mongolia

On October 28, 2010, KIPO announced that they would build a ‘Mongolian patent information system’ based on the ‘KIPOnet’ which is a Korean patent information system in Mongolia. Regarding the project of building the Mongolian patent information system, a feasibility study was started from 2008 and the Korean International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) decided to support a public aid fund of US$3.35 million in April 2010.

LG-CNS selected as a business company will build an integrated automatic system including the filing of patent/trademark/design applications and the searches thereof by the end of the next year, through the Mongol local consulting.

KIPO has a plan to form a task force including information experts to hand down the experiences of operating the “KIPOnet”, so that the project can be successively undertaken.

A spokesperson of KIPO said that a meeting of the Commissioners of the two-country Patent Offices was held in Daejeon on October 29, 2010 to discuss the specific cooperative plans of this project and this opportunity was expected to show a case of support and cooperation in the intellectual property field.